


The Secret of the Hidden Grotto

by jennyfly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 11:48:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16743415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennyfly/pseuds/jennyfly
Summary: When Castiel's home is burgled and his beloved Newfoundland dog killed, Detective Dean Winchester is called in to investigate. It turns out the mystery he finds goes beyond his jurisdiction with the Austin Police Department, but he is compelled to follow it, and the intriguing Castiel Novak, to the end.





	The Secret of the Hidden Grotto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [palominopup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/palominopup/gifts).



> For palominopup
> 
> This little story was born from a prompt on her Facebook page. I have taken her words as the first eight paragraphs presented here, so all due credit goes to her.
> 
> Also, please note that this story makes super extremely liberal use of and treatment of facts pertaining to T.B. Baker, the Baker Hotel, Mineral Wells, Texas, Possum Kingdom Lake, the Hidden Grotto, and the WPC bridge somewhere on private land in Palo Pinto County.
> 
> Some details presented are true, and the story makes use of actual places.

Detective Dean Winchester stared down at the man holding his dead dog. He tried to ignore the tracks of tears on the ruggedly handsome face. "Mr. Novak, what were they after?”

"I don't know," came the whispered reply. He was lying. The house had been ransacked. Whoever did it killed the man's dog-- a huge motherfucker. Dean didn't do animals, so he couldn't have told you the breed. He could, however tell it wasn't a standard burglary.

"What were they after?" Dean repeated his question, using more force this time. The man was grieving over his pet, and it was times like these that he hated his job.

Cold, blue eyes glared up at him. "I said I don't know." The deep voice was just as frigid as the eyes.

"Mr. Novak, you have several thousand dollars worth of electronics. All untouched. Your Rolex is still on your dresser." The watch alone was worth more than Dean made in a year as a detective for the Austin Police Department. "Let's try this one more time. What were they after?"

Novak gently laid his dog on the floor and got to his feet. Blood stained the man's crisp white shirt and blue slacks. He pulled himself to his full height, only an inch or so shorter than Dean's own 6'1". His eyes were glacier now. The jaw was set so hard that Dean's teeth hurt just looking at him.

"I. Don't. Know. Detective." He spat out Dean's title and Dean inwardly winced. "Isn't it your fucking job to find out?"

Dean pursed his lips and put his hands on his hips, pushing his suit jacket back to reveal his shoulder holster. "Look, I'm only trying to help. That is my job."

Some emotion Dean couldn't identify passed over Novak's features.

Novak deflated onto a nearby chair and his hands pulled at his hair when his elbows hit his knees.

Dean scratched at the back of his own neck and searched for something to say to the guy that would pull him out of his sad headspace and into the helpfulness. Before he could speak, though, Novak looked up.

“Unless…”

He paused a moment on the word, and Dean watched his face expectantly. He couldn’t help but focus on the man’s slightly parted lips, dark pink and puffy from him chewing on them; they looked utterly seductive.

“Unless?” Dean prompted.

Novak got up and walked back toward the garage he had entered from. In the hallway, he had noticed that several of the photos on the buffet table were overturned. Bernard the newfie occasionally hit the table, knocking the frames over, when he took the corner too fast and slid on the hardwoods without traction. But that would never happen again…

Once he had replaced the photos to their original positions, he could see which of them was gone.

“A photo.”

“A photo? Like these others? A family pic?”

“Yes. A photo of my brother Gabriel and myself.”

“Okay. Anything special about it?”

Castiel Novak locked eyes with Detective Dean Winchester, and for a moment they were both stuck in stunned attraction. Novak shook his head slightly and forced himself to look away. “My brother may be in trouble.”

Winchester blinked. “You better tell me everything.”

…

Dean studied his notes for a few minutes, flipping back and forth between pages of his notepad, his coffee long gone cold. He reached absently for the mug then grimaced when the tepid beverage hit his tongue. With a sigh, he decided to recap the story for clarity’s sake.

“So, you’re telling me the only thing missing is a Polaroid of you and your brother from 1980. In the background of the picture is a framed painting that your grandmother painted of a place called The Hidden Grotto where you believe your great grandfather hid treasure in 1934 when he declared bankruptcy to avoid the IRS. The supposed treasure was amassed in the 1910s and 1920s when the infamous Dr. Baker fleeced a bunch of sick people of their life’s savings.”

“That’s the gist of it.”

“Who’s hunting this treasure now?”  
“Our cousins, I think.”

“Why now?”

Castiel Novak shrugged. “My aunt is getting older, and she may have only just told Luc and Mike the story.”

“The aunt who took the Polaroid.” Dean made another little note in the book.

Novak simply nodded. His own coffee mug was long empty and he was tired from laying the complicated tale out in as straightforward and linear a fashion as he could.

“Alright. So your brother has the original painting of the Hidden Grotto. He’s in Dallas and needs to be warned.”  
“I texted him. Still no reply.”

“Right. And the old Baker place is in M.W.? I didn’t write that down—“

“—Mineral Wells. The Hidden Grotto is near Possum Kingdom Lake, I think. Grandma took us out there when we were kids. It was when Gabe and I were reading _Treasure Island_ for the very first time, well, he was reading it to me, since I was only about four or so, and she said she could show us where there was some real life hidden treasure.”

“And y’all didn’t find the treasure?”

“We didn’t exactly hunt for it. Grandma went up there with her easel and we had a picnic basket, and Gabe and I did some mean swashbuckling with fallen branches, across from the grotto, but we didn’t go to the caves. It never crossed our minds. When we were with Grandma and she was painting, we stayed behind her instead of in front of her. We played in the woods.”

Dean chuckled lightly. “My brother and I would’ve been in those caves so fast.”

Novak smiled, and it was like Dean had the wind knocked out of him. He had to take his mug to the sink just to break eye contact, or he was bound to ask the guy out. Jesus, he was never affected so hard and fast by a pretty face.

But, you wouldn’t exactly call Novak pretty. His face was worn, had seen a lot of sun, had some deep creases across the brow. But damn, the way it was all put together…

“It’s four hours to Possum Kingdom from here, Detective. If you don’t mind, I need to start the drive. If we wait to hear from Gabe or DPD, we’ll be too late. It’s only three hours from Dallas.”

Dean turned and paused, “You’re going up there?”

“Someone broke into my house and killed my dog. I’m not letting them get whatever it is they want.”

“You think based on that photo, they’re going to the Grotto?”

“Maybe. For all I know, someone in the family has already taken whatever might have been hid there years ago. Decades ago. But what else could someone want with a forty-year-old Polaroid?”

“I’ll drive.”

Novak’s blue eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“If there is someone willing to silence your dog like this out at that lake looking for treasure, you can’t just go storming in with your… calculator. You need backup.”

“Really, Detective, just because I’m an accountant—“

“Dean.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m Dean, and I’m driving.” Twirling his keys on his finger, Dean headed to the door and paused just long enough to see Novak pull the long-ago loosened tie from his collar. “You coming, Novak?”

“Castiel.”

“What?”

“You can call me Castiel now.”

“Okay, Cas,” Dean smiled his most charming smile. “Whatever you want.”

…

 

The silence in the car was oppressive through Lampasas and half way to Comanche. They’d stopped in Goldthwaite for fuel and more coffee. Dean popped the license plate down on his ’67 Chevy Impala to fill the tank, and he almost drenched his shoes in gas because Cas stood right there behind the car with his hands on his narrow hips and his hair fucked up from driving 80 with the windows down. Jesus, the man was distracting to look at. Too bad he was so quiet, but Dean tried not to press because the guy had just lost his dog and dredged up a boatload of old family memories in that story he’d told.

“You okay, Cas?”

The man’s blue eyes looked startled for a fleeting moment, like he couldn’t believe Dean was speaking to him. “Yeah. Fine. I’m just going to find the, uh, euphemism.”

Dean watched his retreating form and had to force himself not to dwell on the guy and every tiny distracting detail about him that his brain labeled “cute” against his will.

_Think about the damn case._

Dean had uploaded the recording of the guy’s report to Charlie, back at HQ. She had phoned him half an hour back with some details. Cas’ great grandfather, Dr. Baker, was a first-class quack and rip-off artist back in the early days of the twentieth century. A hundred years ago, it seems, entrepreneurs like the old doctor made a killing in selling “cures” to people with various complaints from gout to consumption to diphtheria to cancer. Hell, most of the stuff people suffered from back then went undiagnosed. Guys coming back from The Great War with the Spanish Influenza, shell shock, and melancholia either died before they could get to a doctor or believed no one could help with what they had because they weren’t goddamned sick in the first place.

Dr. Baker’s shtick was healing waters. Before he got to Mineral Wells, Texas, and founded the booming business of bottling the locale’s so-called restorative spring water as “Crazy Water” to sell, he had been run out of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for trying it there. Not only that, but his Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs had been the venue for some dozens of suspicious deaths of patients under the doctor’s care, most of whom had bequeathed their fortunes to the good doctor shortly before expiring. The “Haunted Hotel Tour” there today encourages its more sensitive customers feel the disquieting vibrations in the hotel’s basement, which had been the morgue when the building was Dr. Baker’s first “hospital.”

Charlie also supplied more of the same details for the Mineral Wells iteration of Dr. Baker and his Baker Hotel, which was such a famous curative spot in its heyday that silent screen starlets to would-be presidents flocked to it to take the waters and gifted their host, Dr. Baker, very generously.

Driving along the two lanes of asphalt on a mildly sunny November day was relaxing, and to keep his mind busy Dean had been replaying Cas’ story. A lot of the more lurid details came from his aunt, Naomi, but the meat and bones of the story had been from his Grandmother, Amara Baker. She was an only child and was spoiled spectacularly by her father, who was a big man around town, what with running his own hospital and curing all sorts of famous and infamous people in his Crazy Water Hotel. Rumors even suggested that Bonnie and Clyde had passed through Mineral Wells to benefit from Dr. Baker’s benevolence.

But when the water craze dried up and Baker’s hospital was shut down, the Revenuers started sniffing around town, very interested in Dr. Baker’s wealth. Around this time in Chicago, the great Al Capone had been brought down by his own failure to pay taxes, so the Revenue Department was feeling its oats and looking for money in places heretofore sacred.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean broke through his own reverie to comment, “It’s kind of ironic you’re a tax accountant, isn’t it?”

“Ironic?”

“If your grandfather was being staked out for tax evasion—“

“—Great grandfather.”

“Right. Well, I was just thinking through the story. Finding threads.”

“Tax threads,” Cas looked slightly amused. His eye fucking twinkled.

The car swerved.

“Rabbit,” Dean pointed to the rear view mirror where, even if it were angled correctly, Cas would not be able to see a rabbit that narrowly survived the Impala, because there was no rabbit, and it was a lame excuse. Dean cleared his throat and went back to his thoughts. Not about the blue of Cas’ eyes and the adorable crease beside his pink lips.

So, the story goes that Dr. Baker, who kindly accepted cash and jewelry from his grateful patients, who may have included Clark Gable and Glenn Miller, kept very meticulous records. Meticulously clean records. Like no records of those “gifts” at all. And the story continues that when the Revenuers were getting a little too close for comfort, the doc hid his treasure. No one ever found out where because he left town, estranged from his wife and young daughter, his wife who was deaf from (she said) scarlet fever as a child, but who was rumored to have lost her hearing later in life from being severely beaten by Dr. Baker during his “troubles.” Some people even say he left town not from fear of the Revenue men, but because Amara was a dead shot, so long as she didn’t have to shoot too far.

“So Amara was left to raise Hester Baker on her own.”

By now, Castiel was used to Dean’s non-sequiturs as he thought out the details.

“And she did a fine job, raised my grandmother to be an artist. She always said she married Mr. Novak just to change her name from Baker.”

“So Hester Novak had baby boy Chuck and baby girl Naomi who are your father and aunt, respectively.”

“Yes.”

“And you have one brother: Gabriel Novak.”

“Yes.”

“And Naomi had two boys: Luc and Mike.”

“Yes.”

“And you think they might be the ones who killed your dog.”

Cas sighed. “I hate to accuse them. I don’t know them very well. But as much as Grandma Hester used to tell us wild stories about her dad Dr. Baker, Naomi used to always add on to those stories with shameful secrets. She’s the one who claimed Granny Amara never had scarlet fever in 1903, and that the IRS were on their way to the house to arrest Great-Grandpa when he disappeared. She’s what you might call the family shit-stirrer.”

“And her boys might take after her.”

“Yes. What you need to know Detective—Dean, is that we never had money. I went to UT on a scholarship and got a good job on my own merits and bought that house with my own money, but all of that at the expense of a social life. Luc and Mike never had the same work ethic, and Gabe is the sole heir to the little wealth that Hester was able to accrue in her lifetime of working for the U.S. Government.”  
“So your cousins resent that you and Gabe are well-off and they aren’t.”

“Exactly. Look, there’s the turn off to the lake.”

…

Having passed I-20 a short time ago, Dean made the maneuver onto highway 180 heading west a little ways from Mineral Wells. Then it was a hike up the bridle path to the Hidden Grotto. An old WPA bridge spanned the creek to their right and red oak, pecan, and elm trees dazzled in the setting sunlight. Castiel walked silently while Dean clomped a bit, but they were companionable just the same.

From the lakeside they could see the caves where a century ago lovers would canoe and drift to make whoopee away from prying eyes. The old rutted carriage tracks were still trip hazards off the path, and a pair of wildly dancing flashlight beams could be seen inside the farthest cave, outside of which an inflatable raft was tied up.

“Damn,” Cas whispered. There wasn’t time to go grab a canoe from the Wal-Mart in town if the perps were already here. He began quickly kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt.

“Uh, Cas?”

Cas looked at Dean in the gloaming as he dropped his shirt on a close shrub.

“Why are you—“

“—no time, Dean. I’m a strong swimmer.” And no sooner were the words out of his mouth than he was standing in his boxer briefs eyeing the distance to the caves.”  
“It’s November.”

“It’s seventy degrees.”

“But it’s NOVEMBER, Cas.”

Castiel nodded and slipped into the water. Dean knew it was cold by the way Cas’ shoulders tensed, but the man made no sound and before he could protest, he was submerged and moving to the caves, belied only by a faint ripple on the surface of the lake.

“Shit.” Dean had to move quickly or Cas would be there without the backup Dean had insisted he was along to provide.

He sent off a quick text to Charlie before dropping his phone on his shirt on the bush adjacent to Cas’ and shimmying out of his pants.

“Shit!!!” he said as he lowered himself into the lake. His face scrunched up at the feel of slime oozing between his toes. “Goddammit, Cas.”

Dean swam for all he was worth.

…

It was nearly full dark at the caves’ edge when Cas stuck his head up to get his bearings. The flashlights were still now, pointing at the cave ceiling where a few feeble stalactites that had survived a few hundred years of human mischief clung to their dignity.

The two bad guys – perpetrators? suspects? Cas wasn’t sure what to call them in his head—had the Polaroid in plain view and were peering at it with a magnifying glass.

“I’m telling you, the light in the painting is brightest in the second cave.”

“It’s not the light we need to look at but the darkness that would suggest something hidden.”

Cas was focused so intently that he nearly shrieked when a hand splayed across his ribs. He opened his mouth to chide Dean but stopped short when he saw him there. Naked, wet, his hair damp and half plastered to his brow. Cas was only sad there was no sunlight for this. No light to catch the mesmerizing green spark of Dean’s eyes, to highlight the glistening pink of his lips.

The two of them treaded water and stared at one another, panting lightly and dumbstruck, a pair of lovers at the grotto like so many who had come before them, but each utterly unaware of the other’s lustful fascination.

A voice broke them apart.

“Just start looking behind those rocks. I’ll go to the next cave and do the same. Just holler if you find something.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Dean motioned for Cas to swim in the opposite direction of the area the men were searching. Cas followed him, and they spoke low and very close. “Are those your cousins?”

“Yes.”

“I need you to swim right back to your clothes right now, Cas.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because they killed your dog. We don’t know if they’re armed, we have the evidence of the Polaroid they’re holding as proof they burgled your place, so we need to wait for backup.”

“You are my backup, Dean.”  
“I have no jurisdiction here, Cas.”

“I don’t need jurisdiction. They killed my dog!!”

“Dammit, Cas!”

The noise that broke them apart was a metallic click. It took Cas a moment to register that it was the cocking of a gun, but Dean knew the sound like he knew breathing and his hands went up as he internally cursed the fact that he left his sidearm on the other shore with his phone, badge, clothes, brain.

“Well, if it isn’t Cousin Cassie. And who’s your boyfriend?”

“Oh we’re not—“ Dean was silenced by a kick to his shin. His head ducked below the water and he spluttered.

“Get out. Mikey, you might wanna come see this,” he called.

“D’ya find it? What. The. Hell. Castiel?” The man, Mike, looked at Dean. “Who’s this, yer buttmonkey?”

“Butt what? What’s a buttmonkey?” Dean laughed as he got out of the water and shook his head free of as much water as possible.

“He’s displaying his unimaginative homophobia,” Cas supplied.

Dean did a double take. Maybe the lust hadn’t been so one-sided after all? “Homo—are you gay, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean. Aren’t you?”

“I’m bi.”

“Hmmm,” Cas tilted his head to one side as if to puzzle something out about this factoid.

“Are you two fucking flirting here? I’ve got a gun pointed at you and you’re flirting? That is so disrespectful.”

Dean straightened out his face and squared his shoulders. “Sorry. Luc, is it?”

“You can call me Lucifer.”

“Really?” Dean looked to Cas to confirm this.

“It’s been his nickname since childhood. He used to pluck feathers from Granny’s parakeets.”

Dean scowled. “And now you kill dogs?”

“Everybody needs a hobby.”

Cas looked ready to smite the guy at that confession, but Dean made a quelling gesture with his hand. He was listening intently for sirens. _Please God, let Charlie have got the message. Preferably before he shivers to death out here._

“Took awhile for the beast to kick it, too. All that blood…”

Quelling motion be damned, Cas threw a mean right, and Dean used the distraction to kick the gun away. Happily it did NOT go off then it hit the stone floor of the grotto, and Dean made a grab for it. Mike lunged but Cas got him with his left and then an elbow for good measure. Even so, Luc had recovered enough to grab Cas at that point, but as there was really nothing to grab onto but his wild hair, Cas was mostly able to slip aside in time for Dean to clear his throat loudly and wave the gun at Mike and Luc.

“Citizen’s arrest!” Cas shouted and all three men stared at him.

“That’s not a thing, man,” protested Luc.

“It is. I’ve seen it on television,” Cas groused.

“Listen,” Dean broke in, “you’re under arrest, so just shut up.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me to shut up, bisexual man?” Luc mouthed off.

“He’s Detective Dean Winchester.”  
“Never heard of him,” said Mike, still not taking this seriously.

Luckily it was at this point that the sheriff’s boat came close enough to be heard echoing in the caves. All of a sudden the place was lit up and Dean adjusted the pistol because he’d been ineffectively pointing it somewhere beyond Luc’s left ear the whole time.

The brightness of the spotlight dazzled.

“Drop the weapon! On your knees. All of you.”

Dean was the first to comply, and he said, “Cas, get down.” Cas copied Dean’s posture with his hands on his head and the stones digging into his naked knees.

A deputy disembarked into the grotto to assess the situation. The weapon was collected, and all four of them were cuffed and led onto the boat. Cas and Dean were delighted to be covered in blanket at that point.

“Is any of you Detective Winchester?”

“I am.”

“You got some ID to prove it?”

“He does not,” Mike piped up. “Because I am Detective Winchester.”

Luc caught on, “No, I am.”

The deputy looked to Cas. “I’m not. I’m Castiel Novak, and my ID is onshore somewhere over there off the bridle path near the old bridge.”

The deputy sighed, looked at his watch, and radioed for backup.

The four suspects remained cuffed at a handful of deputies searched the shore and the grotto opposite for identification and clues.

…

The sheriff herself was roused from her night off with her family to listen to the story and tell the deputies how to handle it. In the end, Luc and Mike and Cas were put in cells for the night because Luc insisted on pressing charges against Cas for the purpling nose that deformed his face. They couldn’t get the judge until the next day, no matter how much Dean tried to impress the sheriff with his shiny APD badge and detective business cards.

Cas looked glum about it, but at least he had his clothes back and managed to keep the blanket. It would get down into the fifties overnight, and neither Mike nor Luc were lucky enough to have blankets of their own.

…

The judge tried to look like this wasn’t the most interesting thing that had happened in Palo Pinto County in a decade, but he did let Cas off without a fine, a dog-lover, himself. Mike and Luc were to be extradited to Austin for bugling Castiel’s home and killing Barnard.

That left Dean and Cas with another sunny November day and a bad idea in mind.

The first stop was Wal-Mart where they got the inflatable kayak and cheap but rugged clothes for the trek.

Back at the grotto, they spelunked in silence until midday when the pre-packaged Wal-Mart sandwiched tasted like manna.

“I don’t think there’s anything here, Cas.”

“Mmm.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just. It’s weird I haven’t hear from Gabriel. This is his kind of adventure, really. Not mine.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Are you up for one more stop?”

Dean was about to reply that he was up for anything where Cas was involved, but he stopped himself and merely nodded. Cas nodded too, and somehow it was like he understood what was left unsaid.

So they rowed back to the car and Dean let Cas navigate them into the city of Mineral Wells and down Main Street to Hubbard, past the old Baker Hotel to 7th Street, and up a steep hill. At the very top of it stood an old Craftsman cottage with the remains of an old oak tree sprawled across the front yard. Castiel walked past the exotic flowers growing over the beds and lawn in front of the house and stopped beside the sagging porch to turn over a few old red bricks until he found one that had a keybox hidden beneath it. From there, he took the old skeleton key and walked around the side of the house to the back porch where the key fit a semi-detached one-room building.

“This was the old kitchen. A new kitchen was added on in 1968, but I remember Dad talking about what a great hiding place it was when they used to play hide and seek.”

Dean listened and followed Cas from the old kitchen through a closet doorway into a bedroom with antique brass twin beds.

“And I got to thinking about where Gabe and I used to play hide and seek in Grandma’s house.”

Cas walked to a room that held an early mid-century dining table with six Edwardian chairs. It was charmingly mismatched and worked well together.

“This was the end of the original house. The rest of the rooms from here on down were additions. Dad said when the wall was open he hid a treasure box—an old cigar box with baseball cards and half dollars and chewing gum wrappers with jokes on them—he put his treasure box in the wall so it was boarded up.”

Cas walked deeper into the old part of the house. “And I remembered when Gabe and I were playing once, in the 80s, that old picture of the Hidden Grotto fell off the wall because we were playing baseball inside and Grandmother tanned our hides with a switched from the old oak tree, and there was a hole behind it. The painting was hanging in the front room to cover a hole in the plaster.”

Cas stopped in front of a wall with green flowery wallpaper, and he ran his fingers over the straggling cobwebs and felt around in circles until his fingertips made an impression. And he pressed harder there and poked right through.

He stopped and looked to Dean. And the air was taut with anticipation and Dean nodded, encouraging Cas. And he tore the brittle old paper off in a long strip.

…

The drive back to Austin was taken up by less of the awkward silence than the drive up had been. In fact they argued a little when Dean insisted the first person Cas should call was his brother, and Cas insisted he should call his lawyer.

“My brother is a lawyer,” Dean said.

“Well, my lawyer is a lawyer, too. I thought you meant I should call Gabe.”

“No, when I said brother, I meant mine. My brother, the lawyer. But maybe you should call Gabe. I mean, he inherited the house when Hester died, right?”  
Cas nodded. “He’s the oldest, so yes. But I’ve been trying to reach him for two days, and I’ve got no answer, so I’m calling Sam.”

“Sam who?” Dean looked at him.

“Sam Winchester, my lawy—your brother.” Cas grinned. “How have we never met?”

“You sacrifice your social life by being a workaholic, Cas.”

“Well, that changes now. Dean Winchester, would you like to get a coffee with me tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? We got coffee fifteen minutes back.”

“I meant good coffee. Not gas station swill. And I was trying not to appear too impatient.”

“In that case, I accept.”

Cas smiled. Dean dialed Sam and put him on speaker.

_“Sup?”_ Sam answered, apparently with his mouth full.

“Is that how you answer the phone, Sammy? “Sup?” Are you a ‘sup’ guy now? What if I was a client?”

_“You’re not a client, Dean.”_

“But what if I—“

“Sam, it’s Castiel Novak.”

Sam audibly straightened up on the phone. He cleared his throat. _“Castiel. What can I do for you?”_

Dean laughed.

_“How do you know my brother? He didn’t arrest you, did he?”_

“No, Sam, I am not under arrest. Not today anyway.”

_“Today?”_

“Tell him about yesterday.”

“Shut up, Dean.”

_“Castiel, what’s going on?”_

“I called to ask about statutes of limitations.”

… __  
  


Dean waited impatiently at Coffee People, inside of Book People for Cas to arrive. He tried to look anything but impatient, but the guy was late. He checked his watch again and wondered if this place had been a good choice, after all. Dean liked this place because it had ample parking, unlike most of those hipster joints around Sixth. Plus it had books, which meant good people watching. He was almost to the point of lifting his arm again to check his watch when he spotted Cas ambling over toward the cafe with his nose in a book.

“Cas!”

He looked up, spotted Dean and smiled.

Dean beckoned him over and proceeded to chide Cas when he got to his seat. “What are you doing with that?” He gestured to the book.

“Reading it.”

“What the hell, Cas?”

“What?” Castiel’s eyes squinted and he looked like he was about to punch Dean the way he had done Luc.

“I mean, You’re meeting me, right?”

An eyebrow rose. “Are you and books mutually exclusive?”

Dean scoffed. “Of course not.”

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

Dean sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, man. Let’s start over. How’d your meeting with Sam go?”

Cas’s expression went mild. “Well, since your team found Mike and Luc’s fingerprints all over my house, the bail is set much too high for them to deal with. Apparently Luc has a past conviction on his record as well for domestic violence from when he was married, and Mike’s wife is unwilling to take out another mortgage to bail him out, so…”

“So they get to stew in their own juices.”

“Yes.”

Dean rolled his eyes, “Aaand?”

“And the fact that there is no proof of the origins of the treasure, other than a hundred year old hearsay—I mean even the Revenuers at the time weren’t able to pin anything down—means my statute of limitations worry is moot.”

Dean smiled. “That’s good, right? That must be good, but you’re not smiling. You have but face.”

“Butt face?” Castiel looked unimpressed.

“No. But face. Like you’re about to say But.”

“Oh. Yes, well. BUT, I can’t get the crate appraised for a couple of weeks, and I have to split it with Gabe, no matter what because it was in his house.”

“Which he doesn’t live in”

“But he owns.”

“Which has been empty since your Grandma died in 2010.”  
“Dean.”  
“Cas.”

“Gabe and I split the treasure.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Dean relented, “Since he was the one to read _Treasure Island_ to you in the first place.”

Cas sipped his coffee and grimaced. “This coffee is cold.”

“You were late, dude.”

Cas made a face and stared at Dean for several moments. “Would you like to come back to my place and help me sort the coins and jewelry?”

Dean grinned. “Is that a euphemism?” 


End file.
